Summer Palace

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

4-3-13 Wednesday

Wake up call was 4:30 but the power went off in the hotel at 3:00. An emergency light came on which woke Dan and then me. Neither one of us got any more rest. Dan said, “I wonder if we’ll get the wake up call if the power is out.” That’s all I needed to keep me awake. We finally got up about 4:10, showered and dressed. By then, the power had come back on. Then the wake up call came through.

We did get a leisurely breakfast today which was better than the 5 minute ‘grab and go’ we had yesterday.

At 6:00, we boarded the bus and were off to the airport. Landed in Beijing mid morning.

Our first stop today was the Summer Palace. What a beautiful place! The emperor had it created as a birthday gift for his mother. There is a huge man-made lake and man-made mountain. The lake is the shape of a peach. The mountain is shaped like a bird. The peach represents longevity.

I could imagine how lovely it would be to be the royalty living there. There was a nice breeze blowing off the water which cooled us. There is a long corridor which was painted with scenes from Chinese stories.

There are many buildings built as homes and offices as well as quarters for the servants. The lake is very large with an island which has a bridge that was built based upon one the emperor admired from Japan.

Next was lunch at a restaurant in Beijing. It was a good meal. All the dishes were tasty. My only complaint was the rice was cold.

Finally, we got to the motel (Pullman Beijing West Wanda). After a short wait, our carry-on bag was delivered by Bus A. (We combined our Bus B with Bus A at the beginning of the day and then split back into two buses again so our carry-in was still on Bus A.)

We then went across the street to KFC and had fun trying to order. Ended up with hot wings and crispy style hot wings – not what we thought we were ordering. Ate ‘em anyway.

Then we walked next door to McDonalds. Dan ordered fish sandwich meal and I got an ice cream. In walked Larry Jobe and Dave Sanderson. So we moved upstairs to sit with them. Then Dan ordered a Big Mac and I got another ice cream.

The next adventure was to go downstairs to the grocery store and try to find cough drops and alcohol. We ended up looking at the fish and meat department and were surprised at the huge variety they have. We also looked in the fruit/veg department. They also had a large variety there. Finally we found what we were looking for. As we finished checking out, we were greeted by two others from our group. We were able to help direct them a bit.

As we walked back into the hotel, there was Larry and Dave sitting in the bar area with Lottie. So, we went in to join them for a bit.

We were in our room and found the fridge didn’t work and the internet didn’t work. We had several people in and out trying to fix the problems. In the end, we moved to another room.

It is now 9pm and time to get some rest before we head out for tomorrow's adventure.